According to Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI), data center projects alone attracted THB 521.2 billion in investment applications from 28 projects in the first half of 2025. In early 2026, the BOI approved another seven data center and data hosting projects, representing more than USD 3.1 billion in combined investment.

As Thailand’s data center capacity continues to expand, reliability is becoming just as important as capacity. For operators, even a short power interruption can affect servers, networking equipment, cloud services, and mission-critical applications.

This makes reliable backup power infrastructure a fundamental part of modern data center operations.

Lead-acid batteries, as a core component of UPS power supply systems, serve as the "last line of defense" for the entire power supply system. However, the reliability of this barrier is often an unknown.

In float charging mode, the battery terminal voltage may appear normal, but it cannot release enough energy during a sudden power outage, causing core equipment to shut down. Manual inspections are time-consuming and labor-intensive, yet they are difficult to detect hidden problems such as abnormal internal resistance of individual cells or elevated temperatures. Verification discharge tests not only shorten battery life but also leave the power supply system in a vulnerable, unprotected state. Behind these predicaments lies a common pain point: the health status of batteries is invisible.

ANSI/TIA-942 mandates that data centers automatically monitor the voltage, temperature, and internal resistance of individual batteries to prevent systemic risks. This is particularly important for Tier 4 data centers, where automatic monitoring of individual battery temperature, voltage, and internal resistance is mandatory.

Acrel ABAT100 series online battery monitoring system is an online battery monitoring product compliant with ANSI/TIA-942 standards. It can provide early warnings for failing batteries and perform battery equalization. The system monitors battery voltage, internal resistance, and internal temperature, and is very convenient to install, maintain, and connect.

The system mainly consists of the following core components:

1. ABAT100-S Single Cell Monitoring Module – Each cell is equipped with one of these modules for 24/7 online monitoring, enabling the timely detection of deteriorating cells. It offers three detection ranges: 2V, 6V, and 12V, meeting the requirements of most batteries. Each module monitors the voltage, internal resistance, and negative electrode temperature of one cell. Installation is extremely simple; just connect one wire to each of the positive and negative terminals, requiring no special training. Internal resistance measurement error is as low as ±2%, and temperature measurement accuracy reaches ±1℃.

2. ABAT100-C Single Battery Monitoring Module – Each battery pack is equipped with one of these modules for 24/7 online monitoring of charging/discharging current and ambient temperature. It features a Hall effect current sensor for high-precision current detection with a range up to 1000A. With opto-isolation, it offers strong anti-interference capabilities, supports the MODBUS protocol, and is easily integrated into third-party monitoring systems.

3. ABAT100-HS Data Acquisition Unit – One data acquisition unit is assigned to each battery group to manage and collect data from the front-end distributed single-cell monitoring module, and to process, parse, generate, save, and upload the data. One data acquisition unit can manage one group of up to 120 batteries. Data is automatically analyzed and processed to accurately estimate the battery's remaining capacity (SOC) and state of health (SOH). It supports the MODBUS protocol and can be connected to third-party monitoring systems.

4. ATP Touchscreen Display – The human-machine interface provides real-time data, alarm information, event query, and statistical functions. It supports diverse graphical displays such as line graphs, bar charts, and pie charts. It is equipped with an RS485 serial port, RJ45 network port, and USB interface, and operates on 24VDC power. A 7/10-inch industrial-grade touchscreen is optional. Furthermore, the system can be optionally equipped with the AcrelEMS or EIOT cloud platform to achieve networked centralized management and support remote monitoring and data analysis of battery systems across regions.

Core advantage: Enabling battery maintenance from "blind guessing" to "precision".

1. Precise monitoring, multi-dimensional coverage

The system is equipped with a high-precision monitoring module to acquire multiple parameters covering the entire battery lifecycle. Internal resistance is the primary parameter for battery capacity and health status, while voltage and current are measured as auxiliary parameters. The system automatically tracks the internal resistance change trend of each battery cell and intelligently determines the degree of battery degradation by comparing it horizontally and vertically with benchmark values ​​and group average values.

2. Intelligent Early Warning, Proactive Risk Mitigation:

The system analyzes internal resistance trends horizontally (within-group comparison) and vertically (historical data comparison) to accurately locate abnormal batteries. When the State of Harm (SOH) falls below a threshold, an alarm is automatically triggered, and replacement is recommended. For example, when the system detects that the SOH of a battery is <50%, it will promptly issue a replacement prompt to prevent the entire battery pack from prematurely failing during discharge. Through continuous tracking of internal resistance trends, battery failure warnings can be issued 3-6 months in advance.

3. Flexible deployment and efficient integration

The touchscreen provides real-time data, alarm information, and multi-dimensional charts, and supports multiple interfaces such as RS485 and RJ45. The system supports two networking solutions: touchscreen serial port data acquisition and cloud platform, to meet the needs of different scenarios.

4. High cost-effectiveness, reducing total cost of ownership

Data shows that after adopting an online monitoring system, its cost advantage surpasses that of quarterly manual maintenance starting from the 32nd month. Maintenance personnel are freed from tedious manual inspections, able to monitor all battery statuses through the platform, improving maintenance efficiency by over 70% and extending battery lifespan by an average of 15%-20%.